The invention relates to the construction of appliances for microwave resonance therapy making use of electromagnetic noise waves in the EHF range (EHF-noise). Such appliance can find application in clinical and outpatient practice, as well as for needs of emergency medical service as a means for analgesia and arresting the attacks of chronic diseases, for treatment of predominantly functional disturbances of the sleep, motoricity, speech function, and so on, and for treatment of organic lesions, preferably of a psychogenic nature, e.g., peptic ulcers of the stomach and duodenum, by selective action on the nearby biologically active points (hereinafter abbreviated as "BAP").
Appliances such as the one described above must be, from an engineering standpoint, space-saving, simple in manufacture and operation, and highly reliable. From a medical viewpoint, the appliance must be capable of generating EHF-signals within a wide frequency range, with a relatively uniform spectral density of noise power and a sharp diagram of directivity of electromagnetic radiation for selective action on the nearby BAP.
Separate fulfillment of such requirements with due account of up-to-date means for generating electromagnetic radiation offers no substantial difficulties.
For instance, it is known from "Diagnostic and Therapeutic Apparatus for Reflexotherapy and Biophysical Diagnosis Methods," 1983, Moscow, in: "Low-Intensity Laser Radiations in Biology and Medicine," by V. M. Iniushin, pp. 142-145 (in Russian), about the application of He-Ne lasers for practicing reflexotherapy involving selective delivery of luminous radiation to individual BAP.
It is common knowledge that therapeutic efficacy of laser acupuncture is lower than that attained when using millimetric wave electromagnetic radiation, which is due to a fundamental difference between the aforesaid kinds of therapy. The difference resides in that when BAPs are exposed to the effect of millimetric wave radiation, there occurs a resonance interaction of the organism with a radiation source (cf. Bulletin No. 1 of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1985, Moscow, "Response of Human Organism to EHF-radiation Electromagnetic Fields," Ye. A. Andreev, M. U. Bely, S. P. Sitko, pp. 24-32 (in Russian), whereas no resonance effect is observed when using optical-range radiation (laser acupuncture) (cf. Application of Low-intensity EHF Electromagnetic Radiation in Biology and Medicine, 1985, Publishing House of the Institute of Radioelectronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Moscow), "Physical Essentials of Bioresonance Correction of Physiological Status of Human Organism," by Ye. A. Andreev, M. U. Bely et al., pp. 58-83 (in Russian)).
For the reasons stated above, there are found still larger applications in the practice of reflexodiagnosis and reflexotherapy, for EHF electromagnetic radiation generators operating within the millimetric wave band, predominantly within 25 and 180 GHz.
It should be distinguished from such appliances most completely satisfying the aforesaid medicoengineering requirements, those on the base of low-power EHF-noise generators which generate an output radiation having a power by two or three orders lower than that necessary to effect a thermal action upon BAP within the aforesaid entire frequency bandwidth, or a substantial portion thereof.
The closest to the proposed invention is an appliance for microwave resonance therapy as per application Ser. No. 348,954, dated May 8, 1989 for a U.S. utility patent.
The aforesaid appliance has a generator made in the form of a source of impulse EHF-noise and connected to the input of the power supply unit through a pulsed voltage generator, while its output is connected to a radiating antenna through a high-pass filter with a mode transformer.
It is adopted in the present description of the invention that the term "EHF-noise" means "a continuous frequency spectrum EHF electromagnetic radiation."
The appliance discussed above is a very space-saving one, that is, it has overall dimensions close to those of a gas-fired electric lighter, is very economic as to costs of the process equipment, simple to manufacture and operate, and reliable in use. With this appliance, it is possible to generate electromagnetic radiation within a wide frequency bandwidth with a relatively uniform spectral density of noise power (.+-.20 percent of the average density) throughout the working frequency bandwidth.
The appliances with the characteristics set forth above are capable of cutting down the time spent carrying out a treatment procedure and reducing a total absorbed radiation dose due to dispensing with the procedure of searching for resonance therapeutic frequencies.
However, the topology of the biologically active points on the patient's body is such that the points are situated very close to one another in a plurality of the patient's body areas. Thus, for instance, over a hundred of the BAP are located on the auricular concha so that when using the known appliance, a selective effect produced on every particular BAP in the area cannot at all times be attained. One of the causes of this is a comparatively large diameter of the radiation spot applied to the body surface. Besides, when employing an improved method of action specifying a definite sequence of actions on the nearby BAP, such as the auricular ones, the problem of how to increase this selectivity of action becomes still more important. Taking due account of the fact that further BAP are found in the course of development of reflexotherapy, providing a device that meets the requirements set forth hereinabove is made still more necessary.
It is worth noting that the problem of how to simplify the manufacturing technology of the known appliance becomes more important under conditions of mass production thereof. First and foremost, it is required to eliminate manual assembly and adjusting of the principal units, that is, the waveguide, mode transformer, and a spark discharge gap proper as a source of EHF-noise.
As the diagnostic and other information is accumulated on the modes of action produced by electromagnetic radiation in the EHF band, necessity arises to differentiate the frequency spectrum of the emitted power depending on the kind of pathology, i.e., to eliminate the disadvantage inherent in the prototype, a failure to provide a possibility of setting a desired frequency band of the output radiation in the course of manufacture of the appliance. The filter provided in the prototype is essentially a low-pass filter which features a single cutoff frequency corresponding to the lower limit of the EHF band.
The use of a constructionally separated mode transformer and radiating antenna cannot be considered as a construction improvement feature.